Thursday, February 12, 2009
New Blog
I have started a new politicalish blog. Check it out. I fear at times it may be me ranting. I am trying to become more politically educated so I can share my thoughts as well as my feelings. I am hoping is fun and gets people thinking. Hope to see you there. http://www.poortiredhuddledmasses.blogspot.com/
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Happy Birthday Mom
I know that when someone you love has a birthday you are supposed to come up with as many nice things to say as years they are old. But this is my mom and I don't know if that is appropriate. Does she want everyone to know her age? She probably wouldn't care because she doesn't look anywhere near her age, but out of respect I will not tell you. I figure you all know she is at least 50. Since I am 32 there is no way she could be 29, but lets just say she is somewhere over 50. So I am going to tell you the 50 things I love about my mom.
1.She loves me
2.She loves her grandkids
3. She has a really good design sense.
4.She love beautiful things such as art, flowers, home furnishings and surrounds herself with these things.
5.She is a very hard worker, nice things don't generally come easy.
6.She is smart and has a wide vocabulary.
7.She knows how to cook even if she doesn't do it very often.
8.She raised me in the gospel
9.She has a testimony of Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation.
10.She has shared her knowledge and testimony with me.
11.She has trouble remembering whether things that happened in my childhood happened to me or my sister.
12.She keeps little dishes of candy around her house.
13.She loves to travel and lucky for me she used to take me places.
14.She likes to buy me clothes, and thank goodness she does or else I would have nothing appropriate to wear.
15.She love Walt Disney World.(Hmmmmmm do we know anyone else who loves WDW?)
16.She plays the piano and I have always felt blessed to have that in my home when I was growing up.
17.She does really well when she talks to Aidan on the phone. She is very good at keeping up a one way conversation if needed.
18.Although she didn't like to admit it she liked having pet cats.
19.She gives a lot of good advise, which would be easier to take if she wasn't usually right.
20.She is very well read.
21.She tried to expose me to culture when I was growing up.
22.She is very responsible.
23.She is funny but doesn't always know it.
24.She eat Cheerios everyday. (I mean EVERY day, expect one time when we were on vacation and she bought the generic kind at Piggly Wiggley-Pig Oats.)
25.She loves ice cream, especially Cherry Garcia.
26.She saw the Beatles in concert.
27.She likes to write letters. I mean really letters. Like the kind you have to put a stamp on. When I was in college she would send me three letters a week. Most of the time they were just a hello and the weather report.
28.She watches the Weather Channel.
29.She lights up when she sees her grandkids.
30.She is very generous. She loves to give. I used to tell her I had a need at the nursing home and the next day she would fulfill that need.
31.Once she knows you like something she never forgets, and usually gives you gifts related to that interest.
32.She is good at taking care of the sick. If you ever need someone to go to the hospital with you she is the woman.
33.She can talk to just about anyone and usually does. I can't tell you how many times I have watched her talk to a complete stranger in the grocery line.
34.She is artsy craftsy, a talent which I think she will have more time to develop in her retirement.
35.Education is very important to her and she made she I got a good one.
36.She loves nature but hates camping.
37.She always let me have my friends over to play when I was a kid.
38.When you go shopping with my mom, you need to allow plenty of time. I have never been to Meijer with her when we have just gone in for one thing and left with one thing.
39.She acts younger than her age, especially when she is with my Aunt Christina
40.When she is with my niece, they go off into their own little world and have a wonderful time together.
41.She knows just what sorts of things Aidan likes to do. She always has just the right toys or sends him just the right things in the mail. What makes this most interesting is that when I told her I was having a boy she said "I don't know what to do with boys".
42.She is a quick learner.
43.She is opinionated and not afraid to share her opinion at places like city council meetings.
44.She is a good driver. I know this seems silly maybe, but I remember he teaching me how to get out into traffic and her telling me to slam on the gas. She doesn't get in accidents, she can navigate big cities and empty stretches of highway. All good things if you take most of your vacations in car.
45.If she gets a hotel room that is not clean, she not only tells the manager about it, she also brings a sampling of the dirt and trash she finds in the room.
46.She makes invisible capes of comfort.
47.She is an excellent writer. Especially resumes.
48.Her example encourages me to be a better person.
49.She has a beautiful smile.
50.She is my mom and I love her.
Happy Birthday MOM
1.She loves me
2.She loves her grandkids
3. She has a really good design sense.
4.She love beautiful things such as art, flowers, home furnishings and surrounds herself with these things.
5.She is a very hard worker, nice things don't generally come easy.
6.She is smart and has a wide vocabulary.
7.She knows how to cook even if she doesn't do it very often.
8.She raised me in the gospel
9.She has a testimony of Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation.
10.She has shared her knowledge and testimony with me.
11.She has trouble remembering whether things that happened in my childhood happened to me or my sister.
12.She keeps little dishes of candy around her house.
13.She loves to travel and lucky for me she used to take me places.
14.She likes to buy me clothes, and thank goodness she does or else I would have nothing appropriate to wear.
15.She love Walt Disney World.(Hmmmmmm do we know anyone else who loves WDW?)
16.She plays the piano and I have always felt blessed to have that in my home when I was growing up.
17.She does really well when she talks to Aidan on the phone. She is very good at keeping up a one way conversation if needed.
18.Although she didn't like to admit it she liked having pet cats.
19.She gives a lot of good advise, which would be easier to take if she wasn't usually right.
20.She is very well read.
21.She tried to expose me to culture when I was growing up.
22.She is very responsible.
23.She is funny but doesn't always know it.
24.She eat Cheerios everyday. (I mean EVERY day, expect one time when we were on vacation and she bought the generic kind at Piggly Wiggley-Pig Oats.)
25.She loves ice cream, especially Cherry Garcia.
26.She saw the Beatles in concert.
27.She likes to write letters. I mean really letters. Like the kind you have to put a stamp on. When I was in college she would send me three letters a week. Most of the time they were just a hello and the weather report.
28.She watches the Weather Channel.
29.She lights up when she sees her grandkids.
30.She is very generous. She loves to give. I used to tell her I had a need at the nursing home and the next day she would fulfill that need.
31.Once she knows you like something she never forgets, and usually gives you gifts related to that interest.
32.She is good at taking care of the sick. If you ever need someone to go to the hospital with you she is the woman.
33.She can talk to just about anyone and usually does. I can't tell you how many times I have watched her talk to a complete stranger in the grocery line.
34.She is artsy craftsy, a talent which I think she will have more time to develop in her retirement.
35.Education is very important to her and she made she I got a good one.
36.She loves nature but hates camping.
37.She always let me have my friends over to play when I was a kid.
38.When you go shopping with my mom, you need to allow plenty of time. I have never been to Meijer with her when we have just gone in for one thing and left with one thing.
39.She acts younger than her age, especially when she is with my Aunt Christina
40.When she is with my niece, they go off into their own little world and have a wonderful time together.
41.She knows just what sorts of things Aidan likes to do. She always has just the right toys or sends him just the right things in the mail. What makes this most interesting is that when I told her I was having a boy she said "I don't know what to do with boys".
42.She is a quick learner.
43.She is opinionated and not afraid to share her opinion at places like city council meetings.
44.She is a good driver. I know this seems silly maybe, but I remember he teaching me how to get out into traffic and her telling me to slam on the gas. She doesn't get in accidents, she can navigate big cities and empty stretches of highway. All good things if you take most of your vacations in car.
45.If she gets a hotel room that is not clean, she not only tells the manager about it, she also brings a sampling of the dirt and trash she finds in the room.
46.She makes invisible capes of comfort.
47.She is an excellent writer. Especially resumes.
48.Her example encourages me to be a better person.
49.She has a beautiful smile.
50.She is my mom and I love her.
Happy Birthday MOM
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Prodigy
Yes, like all parents I think my kid is a genius. I know he is developing normally and that most kids do this, but when you see it you just have to capture it and share it. I went in my room the other night and there he was leafing through the pages of my John Grisham book. He told me he was "reading".
We did read some of the book together that night. I do try to read him some non picture books but usually they are more juvenile than Bleachers. I just hope he can teach himself to read by 4 like his Aunt Beth.
We did read some of the book together that night. I do try to read him some non picture books but usually they are more juvenile than Bleachers. I just hope he can teach himself to read by 4 like his Aunt Beth.What happened here?
On Thursday night we got a little surprise here in the Wehner household. It made this mess in Aidan's room
It gave me a great work out. It cause fear in me that I had not felt in some time. It cause commotion. It got the cat in a lot of trouble.
I am not sure this is the exact kind of bird, but it was small, brown, and a little plump. The kind you see hopping around in park lots. 
I realized I should use a towel. So after a couple of tries I caught the bird. I took it outside and unwrapped the towel. The bird then tried to fly back up into our carport where it's nest is. Unfortunately it ran into a metal pool that supports our carport. It was a little stunned but eventually it must have gotten home because there is no sign of it anywhere.
It gave me a great work out. It cause fear in me that I had not felt in some time. It cause commotion. It got the cat in a lot of trouble. This is what came to visit:
I am not sure this is the exact kind of bird, but it was small, brown, and a little plump. The kind you see hopping around in park lots. I let the cat in and wasn't paying attention until I saw her standing the bathroom doorway and her tail was poofy. I thought it was the neighbor cat in the wind so I went to check it out. There in my hallway sat a bird. At first I thought it was dead since it was sitting so still and had I not spent so long freaking out about it and fighting with Matt over who should take care of it, I probably could have caught it right then with no trouble. But I did freak out, we did fight about who should clean it up, and the bird regained it's senses. It then flew a few feet into Aidan's room.
I got a large box and tried to capture it. Hence the whole torn up room. It went in every little crevice it could find. Every time I got close it took off. I kept trying to convince it that I wanted it out as bad as it wanted to be out but even when we were eye to eye it didn't seem to understand my desire.
I finally figured out I need to stop it from being able to fly. So I started with a broom and that worked but I had to get it in the box and then remove the broom then put a cookie sheet under the box and get the whole thing outside. Yeah I know a little complicated.
Then when I got the bird trapped here:
I realized I should use a towel. So after a couple of tries I caught the bird. I took it outside and unwrapped the towel. The bird then tried to fly back up into our carport where it's nest is. Unfortunately it ran into a metal pool that supports our carport. It was a little stunned but eventually it must have gotten home because there is no sign of it anywhere. Needless to say the cat is back on the poop list. I should have known she would try something like this. She has been very energetic lately and playing with her fishing pool toy with feathers on the end and even her tail. She probably just felt so tempted by those feathers that she couldn't take it anymore. Not bad for a cat with no claws huh?
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Beauty School Drop Out?
Matt and I have an agreement. Every other haircut I go the beauty school. I think of it as community service and Matt thinks of it as a money saving plan. I don't mind going because I figure that my hair grows quickly enough and it is just a cut. I never get a perm or color (that could go terribly wrong).
I am spoiled by my hair. I have had the same haircut most of my teenage and adult life. Truth be told I currently have the same haircut I had as a toddler. The reason I have had the same haircut most of my life is that it works so well for me. With a good cut I have to use no product, don't have to do much if any curling, just blow it dry (don't even have to use a brush while drying it) and if I get caught in a hurricane I simple run my fingers through it.
Notice that I said with a good haircut? That is not what I got at the beauty school in November. I got a bad haircut. My usual hairdresser had warned me once that often in the beauty school the students overdue it in order to impress. My beautician even told me exactly what to tell them I wanted. I made the mistake of adding in a little extra thing. I call it stacking. It is just putting in a little half inch of layers at the base, sort of a bevel if you will. I used the word little when explaining it. I also used the word nothing extreme. When she showed me one of the other students with a layered haircut I told her I did not want anything that severe.
Apparently, I must have not made myself clear. Because I ended up with this.
This is what it looked like after a blow dry. Notice, no volume, it does not curl under, It is not short and it has layers. Lots of layers. In fact, she even poofed it way up in the back when she styled it.
Thank goodness I am not going to work at 6:30 am because it would always look like this.
After 15 minutes of curling and lots of product this is what I ended up with.
Now I know that for some of you 15 minutes and lots of product sounds pretty normal. But for a wash and dry girl it is torture. I ended up pulling up the sides most days and just curling the bottom layer.
I didn't wait my usual 2 to 3 months between haircuts this time. I just couldn't stand it. So earlier this month I went back to beauty school. I got a brand new student this time. I was worried. Then the instructor came and cut the guide line for her. She took a really long time to cut just the back of my hair. I think she may have been shaking. Then her instructor came back cut the sides in 30 seconds and I was done.
I have only a couple of complaints. First, my shampoo was luke warm at best. And second when she was drying my hair she used a bristle brush that she insisted on digging into my head. I know I need to speak up when stuff like that happens, but the poor thing seemed so nervous. So although my eyes were watering during the styling, I managed to not cry. But for $7 what can I expect.
I am very happy with the finished product so the hour I spent getting it cut was worth it I guess.
The moral of the story is that you should go to the beauty school and give the students some practice. Just follow these simple tips:
1. Be very specific
2. Use words like a little, minimal, just a bit, or better yet, use actual measurements in inches.
3. Tell them when you aren't happy with something. If you don't say anything they never get better.
4. Explain what you want to the instructor as well as the student. And when the instructor comes to check it tell her if there is something wrong.
5. Have them dry and style it. It is a good way to check how it looks and see if it is something you can keep up.
6. Don't be afraid to go back if when you style your hair the next day it isn't right. They will fix it at no charge and it can often be a learning experience for other students. (Yes, I have had to go back before)
7. Tip them if they do a good job.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
A Very Merry Christmas, Part 3
Well, I have finally gotten to Christmas day. For Christmas we went to my Dad's house as usual. We had more great food and plenty of it. We had a great time eating and visiting. I am sorry that I didn't get any pictures of the new babies. I was too busy holding them I guess. In some of the photos you can see Colten in the background. I held Lily for sometime while she slept which may be why I didn't get a whole lot of photos to the end.
Once again Aidan and Helena were stuck like glue. They sat and ate together and every time Helena moved Aidan would start asking where she was. What a nut.
It was good to see all of the cousins together. They had a lot of fun playing together. Since Amy's girls are the same age as Aidan and Helena they had instant playmates. The only down side to the whole thing was that Aidan ending up wandering around holding one of their Barbies, which of course was half naked. I don't know what Matt was up to but luckily he missed that. He tends to freak out when Aidan plays with "girl" toys.
The coolest part of the day was as things were winding down. Pam asked us to open the one present under the tree which was addressed to "the whole family". When the gift was opened it was Twister. Most of the adults were too full and inflexible to play, but Dan and Matthew (my brother) gave it a shot. They were definitely pretzels at times. For the life of me I can't remember who won.
The kids tried it too.
Aidan was just too small to play. He couldn't reach from one side of the mat to the other.
We had a fabulous time in Michigan and Aidan is still talking about going back to Michigan. Just today I found he playing with his McQueen car and saying "we are going to Michigan." We will be back so just look out. As we have proven you may never know when are coming.
Once again Aidan and Helena were stuck like glue. They sat and ate together and every time Helena moved Aidan would start asking where she was. What a nut.
It was good to see all of the cousins together. They had a lot of fun playing together. Since Amy's girls are the same age as Aidan and Helena they had instant playmates. The only down side to the whole thing was that Aidan ending up wandering around holding one of their Barbies, which of course was half naked. I don't know what Matt was up to but luckily he missed that. He tends to freak out when Aidan plays with "girl" toys.
The coolest part of the day was as things were winding down. Pam asked us to open the one present under the tree which was addressed to "the whole family". When the gift was opened it was Twister. Most of the adults were too full and inflexible to play, but Dan and Matthew (my brother) gave it a shot. They were definitely pretzels at times. For the life of me I can't remember who won.
The kids tried it too.
Aidan was just too small to play. He couldn't reach from one side of the mat to the other.
But Aidan sure did try. He even made some interesting yoga poses.
Once I finally convinced Aidan that he couldn't play, he began attacking Helena. I guess he thought if he couldn't play she sure wasn't going to. He would just jump on her back and she would topple over.
But they both had fun, especially Aidan.
May I just say that my brother Matthew was awesome. I guess that I just never realized how cool he is. I think it is because of our age difference. I still tend to think of him as a pestering little kid. He has done a lot of growing up and he was great with the kids and fun to talk to. Who knew. Not me that is for sure. Maybe it is his new baby, but I think I just missed his growing up somehow.
I don't want to go on and on about just him because we had a great time with everyone. My sister Amy was there and I hadn't seen her since before Aidan was born. It is always fun to be with her. We are just comfortable around each other no matter how long it has been since we have seen each other. Probably comes from spending so much time hanging out together in her room as teenagers. There is something nice about being with family. Especially when there is a lot of family. And of course children and Christmas just make magic.
The time came all to soon that we had to leave. Beth and I snapped some pics of the best friends together before we went. That shirt Aidan is wearing was part of his Gaga's spoils from day after Christmas shopping. It lights up when he moves. He would still be wearing that if I hadn't hid it.
We had to take a couple of shots because it is hard to get two kids to smile and look normal doing it. I only included two of them that were the best.
We had a fabulous time in Michigan and Aidan is still talking about going back to Michigan. Just today I found he playing with his McQueen car and saying "we are going to Michigan." We will be back so just look out. As we have proven you may never know when are coming.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
A Very Merry Christmas, Part 2
I figure I better get this up before I forget more details than I already have. I have already told you how we got to Michigan so we will skip that part. As I mentioned in previous posts, my mother has a Mexican Fiesta on Christmas Eve. ( I have been told Mexican was choosen as the fare over 30 years ago because that was what my parents could cook. I know my mom can cook all sorts of things but she keeps that a secret. Just ask her how to make no grainy fudge or lump free gravy. We are on to you.)
So on Christmas Eve, all of the family was excited to see us. But I would have to say that Helena and Aidan were most excited to see each other. I think they even ignored their presents to play with each other sometimes. When Helena first got there, the two shared a long awaited and anticipated hug.
Thanks to whoever got him the Candyland game. He loves it and we play it every day.
So on Christmas Eve, all of the family was excited to see us. But I would have to say that Helena and Aidan were most excited to see each other. I think they even ignored their presents to play with each other sometimes. When Helena first got there, the two shared a long awaited and anticipated hug.
This really is a hug and not Helena trying to suffocate Aidan.
We ate a wonderful meal as usual. I had been telling Matt since Thanksgiving that I no longer got the same pleasure from food on holidays. Luckily it was some sort of temporary problems because I oinked while I was at my moms.
The kids went to the basement and from what I can gather just ran back and forth. Everytime Helena came upstairs Aidan would follow her up and bug her until she went back down to run with her. When it was time for presents he really didn't care and wanted to go back downstairs. I should say he didn't care until he started opening his presents. Then he cared a whole lot.
He absolutely loved all of his gifts. He is still at the age where he wants to play with his toys more than open new presents. So Helena did have to encourage him a bit.
Thanks to whoever got him the Candyland game. He loves it and we play it every day.
This toy is so cool. It is a fire truck that opens up into this little city. It has these little tiny cars that go with it. What you don't see in this picture are the tiny parts and the stickers that seem to cover every inch. Bless Matt for spending over an hour with a sticker sheet, mini pieces and a diagram trying to put it all together.
Helena and Aidan spent a good part of the night like this:
They LOVE each other so much. I think they both have not realized that Aidan is no longer a baby because Helena still likes to hold him as if he were one. Not that Aidan seems to mind a bit.
As I mentioned in my previous post, my mother has a sophisticated tree. Here is a pic, but you can't see the top with the twigs and ribbon. Sorry.
(Hunter, David, and the back of Beth's head are in this one too. As well as, a look at the beautiful presents.)
I will end this post here and do one more I think. I will cover Christmas day in the next one. Stay tuned because some of the funniest pictures are yet to come.
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